Promising Young Woman, Feel Good, I May Destroy You, and the Nuance of Healing Outside From Sexual Assault

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#Metoo opened doors previously shut. Sexual assault victims finally liberated from years of silence, took to social media to call out their abusers. I watched my Facebook fill with people I knew, incidents I was aware of, and situations I could never imagine. I loved my abuser, which felt like a betrayal of the movement, but this was my truth, an indisputable fact in my head. How bad could it be if we dated for six months? What did it matter if consent wasn’t there? I drafted my own post and hovered over the send button, wondering if I should string him out dry for the world to see. The answer seemed easy. That night haunted me well past my 20’s, so why shouldn’t I publicly out him?

I felt stuck between joining the party and quietly heading home.

Promising Young Woman faced serious praise following its release on December 25th, 2020. The film’s protagonist, Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan), vows to destroy me who sexually assault women, keeping a book of tallies of encounters she has with these questionable characters in bars. Acting out of revenge for her now-deceased friend Nina Fisher, who was raped by men in medical school, Cassie targets the men complicit in Nina’s assault. She crashes the person who raped Nina’s bachelor party, the ever so charming Al Monroe’s (Chris Lowell) and ties him to the bed, carving Nina’s name into his stomach. The movie ends with Al escaping his handcuffs and smothering Cassie with a pillow, leading to Cassie’s death.  

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Despite my own uneasiness about the seemingly revenge porn narrative of Promising Young Woman, critics and audience alike raved over its empowerment. Tiktoks flooded my for you page with women praising the title character, dressing up in a hot nurse outfit like Cassie does in the last Act of the movie. Historically in media, women hunting down their abusers is a plotline that sells, uplifting women marginalized and ostracized by the patriarchy. Lisbeth Salander hunts down sadistic pigs in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Elliot Page gets revenge on a paedophile abusing his age as a position of power in Hard Candy. I root for the protagonist, watching them destroy evil men, but I can’t translate that energy into my life.

I chalk my assault up to a miscommunication.  

Unlike Promising Young Woman, I May Destroy You approaches sexual assault with pain, progress, and perseverance. Arabella, played by the show’s writer and creator, Michaela Coel, is violently assaulted in a public restroom following a night out with friends. Over the course of the season, she learns how to cope with the trauma while falling into similar situations, assaulted by a friend within the literary community. Though not nearly as brutal as her first assault, Arabella’s encounter with writer Zain (Karan Gill) is relatable in its portrayal of passing abuse. I May Destroy you shed light on the nuance of assault, one similar to my own. Like Arabella, my abuser was somebody I trusted, someone who took off a condom without consent. But, unlike Arabella, I did not call him out in any public forum.    

“Sometimes that together is with the ones who hurt us.”

I felt similar anger, despair, and betrayal follow me as 2016 unfolded into eternity. #Metoo busted down the door, but the door grew sturdier, with men crawling out of the woodworks to rebel against those rebelling. Questions on the validity of victims were raised after no evidence backed up their claims, as if haunting memories and the words of those affected were not enough to sway public opinion. I fought for others in reply sections but never for myself, bit my tongue, following through, making public content to speak my truth. Nobody relates to someone coming forward defending the person who hurt them yet, the nuance of our situation seemed like it warranted an explanation. Sure, I was unconscious, but he was also drunk. I didn’t see this as anything outside of a typical college encounter.

Besides, he apologized after.

Feel Good capitalized on the nuance assault carries the same way I May Destroy You did. For once, I felt media had captured how I felt toward my assaulter, something I’d never seen done in the mainstream. Mae Martin, the main protagonist, created the show loosely based on her life, taking on difficult issues such as addiction, queer identity, and assault. In season two, she goes back to rehab in Canada, linking up with Scott (John Ross Bowie), a friend from her past that housed her after her parents kicked her out at age sixteen. Scott, thirty at the time, takes advantage of this situation, exchanging sex for shelter. Though they’re friends, this imbalance of power creates a dynamic of dependence Mae confuses for love. Mutual admiration exists there, something Mae tries to recreate in their renewed friendship, but at the end of the season, she realizes the trauma inflicted on her trumps all. “I love you, do not talk to me again,” she tells Scott in the finale, vomiting afterwards following this release.

Promising Young Woman followed a route I wish I could trudge, channelling the negatives of assault into vengeance. I May Destroy You, Promising Young Woman, and Feel Good all follow a victim’s journey surviving abuse, each valid in their own ways. With I May Destroy You and Feel Good, healing is soft; Arabella pursues group therapy to aid her, Mae attempts to find peace in her past. Unlike revenge films and television tuned in to following protagonists’ quest to destroy, these two expose a more vulnerable side of assault, one filled with crumbling walls. We are not indestructible beings, untouchable by the insidious intentions of others. We suffer alone and together.

Sometimes that together is with the ones who hurt us.

Today, I still care for my abuser as I care for a shadow looming in the corner, a presence I’ve grown comfortable with. I saw people denounce their abusers online, and my voice caught in my throat, scratchy at the prospect of outing him. I loved my abuser, which felt like a betrayal of the movement, but this was my truth, an indisputable fact in my head. It seemed like a simple equation I learned in elementary school, but the numbers were fuzzy. I failed every test while my peers got A’s, the answer always “cut. them. off.” Failure hangs over my head as I text him, life passing me by with him as a speck, a piece of dust I can never quite reach on my ceiling fan. To me, there is no correct answer. I’ve accepted it and forgiven him, but never stop wondering: 

Am I truly a survivor if the one I survived survived me? 

Words: Meggie Gates | Illustrations: Zoe Pham